Rename Perth Station ‘Perth St Valentine’

Made in Perth has launched an initiative to see to the renaming of Perth railway station as ‘Perth St Valentine,’ after the formal name, St Valentine’s Day, given by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) to the novel traditionally known as The Fair Maid of Perth.

The renaming of Perth railway station would be a fitting tribute to one of Scotland’s greatest novelists, and to a man the Fair City of Perth owes its title.

Made in Perth has written to Network Rail who own Perth railway station and asked them to consider the rename as a tribute to Sir Walter Scott who christened the ‘Fair City’ of Perth.

We understand that Edinburgh Waverley is the only railway station in the world named after a novel – Perth can be the second.

There is an online petition at http://chn.ge/1gq1U3C (Rename Perth railway station ‘Perth St Valentine’) and it would be fantastic if everyone living in Perth or who hails from Perth can sign it.

Perth owes a debt of gratitude to Scott whose romantic tale of fourteenth century Scotland put the city on the map. After its publication in 1828, and immediate success, people flocked to Perth to see where the brawny armourer and sword fighter Hal o’the Wynd won the heart of the beautiful Catharine Glover, and where Clan Chattan and Clan Quhele fought to the death on the North Inch in a judicial combat that became famous as the Battle of the Clans.

Perth’s connections with the novel are many. The Glover Incorporation and the Guildry Incorporation, organisations which appear in the novel and which can trace their lineage back to the medieval period, thrive to this day. Numerous local businesses use ‘Fair City’ in their company names.

It’s impossible to get away from Scott’s story in Perth: walk down the High Street and you will see Graham Ibbetson’s bronze of the Fair Maid sitting on a bench; visit the South Inch and you will be greeted by a freestone statue of a toga wearing Walter Scott with his deerhound Maida by his side; stroll into Curfew Row and there in its restored glory is the Fair Maid’s House, Perth’s oldest secular building – now home to the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.

2014 is the bicentenary of the publication of the first of the Waverley Novels a series of books which established Walter Scott as the then world’s best-selling novelist, and the pioneer of historical fiction. Scott’s work is recognised internationally as inspiration for most of the world’s greatest writers, from Tolstoy, Balzac, and Turgenev in Europe to Nathaniel Hawthorne and Fenimore Cooper in America.

Made in Perth has been set up to promote arts, culture, ideas, and heritage in Perth.

Our website wwww.madeinperth.org is currently being developed and will eventually include a Walter Scott Trail – a historical and literary journey around the city of Perth taking in key scenes from The Fair Maid of Perth, the medieval city, and the historical guilds.